Data Privacy Legal Jobs: What Do Data Privacy Attorneys Do?

"Data Privacy Legal Jobs: What Do Data Privacy Attorneys Do"
 
As data has become the great commodity of our age, privacy law is one of the most popular areas on which attorneys focus recently. Cybercrimes and data breach issues are at an all-time high, costing companies top dollar each year and urging them to take privacy more seriously than ever before. Legal privacy conferences have seen a surge in the number of attendees in the last few years, as so many lawyers want to enter this area.

 
As regulators enforce data privacy requirements with more vigor than ever before, many legal teams require an attorney who knows the ropes.
 
What Do Data Privacy Attorneys Do?
 
Data privacy is an intricate, ever-evolving area of the law. It is the suite of organizational, technological, physical measures deployed to protect confidential information held by companies, individuals, or organizations. As a legal practice, data security involves helping clients develop apt protections in place and responding to legal matters that arise when those protections become ineffective.
 
Privacy lawyers focus on complex and evolving laws and regulations that govern everything that is connected with data transmitted and stored on computers, including consumer protection laws, privacy laws, and e-discovery issues.
 
Attorneys who practice in the data privacy area provide legal advice on issues such as data breach, cybersecurity, online privacy, data mining, and protocols.
 
Working in a variety of capacities, data privacy lawyers may deal with privacy matters in corporate transactions, handle regulatory compliance issues, or litigation-related privacy concerns. It would be difficult to describe a typical day for a privacy lawyer.
 
Privacy lawyers doing regulatory compliance work help clients comply with the relevant global, federal, and state privacy laws. While this work mostly encompasses minor projects like drafting a website privacy policy or a consent clause to collect personal information, it can also involve substantial projects like helping a multi-national company to develop and implement a global privacy compliance program.
 
A typical day also varies significantly for litigators working on privacy issues. These attorneys might provide clients with legal advice on how to respond to data breaches, handle privacy issues involved in cross-border litigation, defend litigation involving data breaches, and other privacy-related causes of action.
 
What Does A Typical Career Path In Privacy Law Look Like?
 
Privacy attorneys typically start their careers in a law firm, gradually gaining experience in different areas of privacy law. Some might focus on privacy law in IT and outsourcing transactions while others may take an interest in privacy law in litigation, or the regulatory compliance aspects of privacy.

While it is possible to specialize in one area of privacy law, such as health privacy, financial privacy, or student privacy, some privacy attorneys do not specialize in any field and focus on all aspects of privacy law. After an attorney has gained enough experience, it is common to either work as an in-house privacy attorney or stay with the law firm on the partnership track. Many attorneys move on to a chief privacy officer position at a company.
 
What Should Aspiring Privacy Lawyers Be Aware Of?
 
Privacy law is perpetually changing, which frequently makes guiding clients a challenge. A good privacy attorney uses the skills of problem-solving and analytical thinking daily as some projects require lawyers to come up with creative solutions to address clients' business needs.
 
Due to the changing nature of privacy law, attorneys often advise clients on topics where there is some legal unreliability or where the client cannot achieve 100% compliance, requiring the attorneys to make strategic decisions.
 
Many areas of privacy law, such as advising on data breach prevention and information security, require technical knowledge that some lawyers may not like.
 
Recognizing and responding to data breach issues often involves intense time pressure as companies must identify, mitigate and contain the data breach and then notify affected individuals within a specific time frame.
 
Why Do Data Privacy Attorneys Enjoy Their Jobs?
 
Usually, attorneys who enjoy this practice are tech-savvy and tend to enjoy working with technology-related topics. Also, privacy lawyers love their work because of the wide range of projects, and the evolving law provides new learning opportunities and challenges. There are always exciting things happening in the U.S. and international privacy laws, so the topic never gets boring. Privacy attorneys often attend conferences and work collaboratively with attorneys in other firms sharing information about the evolving nature of this law. Because the work is quite specialized, it is often easier for attorneys to lateral in this area than in other practice areas.
 
What Personal Qualities Make A Good Data Security Lawyer?
 
First of all, the right candidate should have a genuine interest in privacy and data security law and the ability to navigate a changing legal landscape. A good candidate would also possess excellent analytical thinking, problem-solving skills, and display creativity in their problem-solving, as well as good research skills and a desire always to be learning and be challenged by complex projects. Matters often move very quickly, so thinking ahead, being proactive, and keeping organized are all valuable attributes. At the same time, being flexible enough to roll with the punches and adapting strategy to fit facts as they're learned and developed also is essential.